1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus such as a PHS (Personal Handy-phone System) terminal, a PDC (Personal Digital Cellular Communication System) terminal, a general telephone set, and the like.
2. Description of the Background Art
There are communication apparatuses such as a PHS terminal, a PDC terminal, and a general telephone set that have the function to notify information of the calling party such as the caller""s telephone number and to provide a display of the information from the calling party at the called party at the time of a call incoming. There are also some communication apparatuses that have a call back function that utilizes stored information from a calling party for transmission and a select call function for altering the audio of the ring back tone when there is a call from a predetermined calling party according to the information from the calling party.
Usability has been improved significantly at the called party by the above apparatuses since the called party can confirm the calling party before responding to the call. However, there is a possibility that information of the calling party such as the telephone number will be known to an inappropriate third party in the event that an erroneous calling operation is made at the caller side.
To obviate the above problem, an apparatus is proposed that allows the user to designate whether to supply calling information or not. Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 8-331233 discloses an apparatus that is provided with a flag that can be set at the time of registering a telephone number into the telephone directory to designate whether to notify the calling information or not. In the former apparatus, the setting once made becomes valid for all subsequent calls. For example, once this function is set as xe2x80x9coffxe2x80x9d, notification of the calling information is suppressed for all subsequent calls. Therefore, the possibility of the calling information being sent to an improper third party due to erroneous calling operation is eliminated. However, there is a disadvantage that in the event of a proper calling operation to an intended called party, the information of the calling party could not be informed, so that the call back function and select call function, if equipped in the communication apparatus of the called party, cannot be used. The latter apparatus has the advantage of sending the calling information only to the intended called party since determination is made at the time of the call originating to notify or not the calling information by means of the flag that is registered in association with the telephone number. However, this apparatus is disadvantageous in that a complex operation is required by the user since the flag has to be registered in addition to registration of a telephone number. Furthermore, a memory having a large capacity is required since the data region for flag registration must be provided for each telephone number. There was a problem that the cost and size of the apparatus are increased.
An object of the present invention is to provide a communication apparatus that can notify calling information to only a desired party without tedious operation of telephone number input by the user, and without increase in cost and size.
According to an aspect of the present invention, a communication apparatus includes an antenna, a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access)/TDD (Time Division Duplex) processing unit, a radio unit provided between the antenna and the TDMA/TDD processing unit for data transfer, a telephone directory memory storing a plurality of telephone numbers classified into a plurality of groups, and a control unit that identifies which group in the telephone directory memory the input telephone number belongs to to provided control of whether to notify calling information or not to a called party via the TDMA/TDD processing unit, the radio unit, and the antenna according to the determination result.
Since the control unit determines which group the input telephone number belongs to in the telephone directory memory and provides control of whether to notify the calling information to the called party according to the determination result, the calling information can be provided at the time of the call originating to only a predetermined party. Therefore, the complicated operation required of the user can be reduced. Also, the memory for storing a flag is no longer required. It is therefore possible to suppress increase in the cost in accordance with additional functions and increase in the size of the communication apparatus.
The foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.